Convention (part 2): traffic tickets & one new habit.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Boy, I ended that last blog rather abruptly, didn't I? I think the battery on my laptop gave out in the middle of my posting. Anyway...the rest of my story related to the plateau is that Nancy started running to break hers. It was a bit sad to me to see the number of inspirational stories that end with people running. I'm never going to be a runner--my back couldn't take the pounding. But I realize that I need to kick up the cardio a notch, and I think I've done that with my exercise bicycle and I know I will continue to raise the bar there. I also need to be more structured about my eating, with more planning and less splurging, as I talked about in my last blog before the convention.

Now, away from me and back to the conference. One more take-away quotation:
"If you got a traffic ticket in the morning, you wouldn't go out and break every driving rule for the rest of the day."

And I'm also going to try a strategy that I used before but was reminded of by one of the speakers (sorry I'm not giving attribution to the wonderful individuals who spoke. It's all starting to run together already): Add one new habit at a time, and keep it going. Every few weeks, add another new habit. That way you slowly create new habits that really become part of your life without trying to do everything all at once--a sure formula for a rapid crash and burn.

What's my new habit this week? Actually, I think I'm going to reinstate two habits that were in place before my broken foot. 1) walk all 4 flights to my office at least once a day; 2) drink 2-3 48 oz containers of water daily. I'm doing two at once because neither should be that hard to reinstate, since they were part of my day before but got disrupted by issues with walking (the stairs are obvious, but going to the kitchen to fill my water bottle became more of a challenge with the broken foot, too).

GIANNA345
Marie:There are a couple of things I do that might give you some ideas. Like you, I try to take the stairs at work, unless I am overloaded or in too much of a hurry. The cafeteria is directly down 3 flights from my office, but I've made it my habit to ALWAYS take the long way when going to get coffee, the way that involves 2 long hallways and takes 5 minutes. I ride the subway to work, but I get out a stop early, and if I have to wait for a train, I use my time walking up and down the platform. Weird, I know, but it helps me meet my most basic goal: 10,000 steps a day. I try to squeeze in running, strength training, and biking, but if the day is crazy and all else fails, 10,000 steps a day is my fallback plan.Janet 3903 days ago

ITGIRL74
Those are great habits and a great way to start them. I realized I've been doing something similar for the last 5 weeks. I've been doing a Biggest Loser challenge that has a different type of all-teams challenge each week (steps, stairs, water, etc.), and I've tried to make sure the habits I pick up on those challenges last for longer than just the challenge week. 3903 days ago